[TowerTalk] Whole House Surge Protectors

[Jim Brown]

On Tue, 10 Apr 2007 21:42:59 -0700, Jim Lux wrote:

>Actually, not entirely true...  If you have a decent whole house 
>system, then the point of use supression should be chosen very 
>carefully.. for instance, you want the threshold voltage to be HIGHER 
>than the threshold voltage for the whole house unit. 

I'll take that a step further. The safest approach is a whole house 
unit at the service entrance taking care of what comes in on the feed 
to the building, including provisions for telephone lines, CATV, etc. 
That earth bonding point needs to have the shortest practical 
connection to the lightning protection for your ham station. 

On branch circuits, you want SERIES-MODE protection devices. The best 
are made by a company called SurgeX. The circuitry is protected by 
patent. A company called Brick Wall licenses the same patent. My RFI 
tutorial includes a discussion of these issues. 

73,

Jim Brown K9YC